Lexi Altobelli college fundraiser

2020 was difficult for everyone, but for Lexi Altobelli the global pandemic was a very small piece of the challenge of last year.

On January 26, 2020, we all felt tremendous pain as we found out that Kobe Bryant and eight other people perished in a tragic helicopter accident. It took a moment to capture the stories of the seven other people besides Kobe and his daughter. 16-year-old Lexi Altobelli had to watch the news reveal that her entire nuclear family, her mom, dad, and younger sister, were all on board that helicopter. At age 16 this young woman was going to face the rest of her life completely on her own, without her sister, and without the guidance of her mother and father.

And then the pandemic hit. Young Lexi had to navigate this entire tragedy though the rigors presented by Covid-19. School closing, Zoom classes, isolation, and separation from peers all adding to the already overwhelming burden of her circumstances.  However, strong of character and determined to persevere, she completed her junior year of high school with a grade point average of 4.2 and then applied to the colleges that she wanted to attend. After an equally stellar senior year, her top choice, the University of Texas in Austin, accepted her and she will become a Longhorn in August 2021.

The purpose of this Go Fund Me campaign is to help Lexi fund her entire college career…tuition, books, housing, and any other related expenses that will assist her in her four years in Texas.

 Thank you for your consideration in helping this courageous young woman.

** P.S.  Lexi agreed to share her college essay with us....it really says it all right there

 COMMON APP ESSAY
     Prior to January 26th, social media was nothing more to me than a mild distraction, a temporary escape. My accounts, like my life, were always private.  I had roughly 500 people who followed me on Instagram, about as many as anyone else in my 11th-grade class at Newport Harbor High. My 8th-grade sister, Alyssa, had about the same.  As in any normal sibling relationship, we would flex on each other, comparing how many people we had in our individual accounts while sharing Tik Tok videos and memes.  All very normal and typical, I imagine.  Now, each of these social media outlets is a portal into the darkest chapter of my life, creating an unending loop of misery and spectacle. They ceaselessly torment me.  I have to force myself to stop engaging.
     When I went to bed on, Saturday, January 25th, it had been as normal as any day.   My dad worked, my 8th-grade sister had played in a basketball tournament earlier that day, and my mom had joined her.  I was preoccupied studying for finals that began on Monday.  We all gathered for dinner and shared our day’s events with each other, then broke off onto our specific parts of the couch where we all sat to watch TV.  Like always, my sister and I sat on either side of my dad, and my mom was just slightly off to the side. I got to bed early as I wanted to go for a walk in the morning before studying.
     The next morning when I woke, everyone was still in their rooms, sleeping.  Normally my dad would join me on my walk around Balboa Island, one of our favorite things to do together, but today he was going to join my mom and go see my sister play basketball. My little sister played on Kobe Bryant’s Mamba basketball team, and going to games in Kobe’s helicopter was always super fun. I was invited also, and, of course, wanted to go, but with my Physics final on Monday, I simply couldn’t make it work.  I left quietly without disturbing anyone, not saying goodbye. You should always say goodbye…
     My world shrunk that day.  No more kitchen tables, no more living room couches.  Since the first phone call, I’ve spent my life living through a 2” X 5” phone screen.  “Kobe Bryant” was my first search.  As the minutes ticked by, pushing aside career stats info, all the news became about the helicopter crash.  Refresh, refresh, refresh.  Only five people died, but there were nine on the helicopter?  My family would be the ones who were ok, they might just be injured, but they are ok.  Doorbells, texts, phone calls…all a blur. But my phone was my constant companion. The reality finally hit when I pulled up Life 360, an app my family used to stay in contact with each other.  Their GPS location was the side of a mountain.  I screamed and lost it.
     Now when I look at my phone, people seemingly know me and comment on me, mostly in horrifically pitying ways.  It’s embarrassing, and all of the attention is distracting to the point of numbness.  It’s surreal to observe myself looking through cyberspace for my family. If there are fewer stories from one day to the next, I become angry, like, who are they to move on?
     Every day when I wake up, there is a split second before my consciousness fully kicks in.  For a very brief moment, I am at peace.  It’s a space that has no memory of the events, of my reality.  But it flickers away quickly as I look around and recognize my new surroundings, and I rush to pick up my phone to see if there is any news, any connection, ANYTHING that brings my family home. For now, the story always stays the same.